Chapter 9

The grouping of four ships entered the edge of the system from the dark space between the stars. They had been traveling from a nearby star cluster at FTL speeds, a journey that took a few weeks of travel but allowed them to stealthily enter the star cluster without alerting the forces that guarded the mass relay. It was another of the systems in the Horse Head Nebula, one without a garden world to colonize, but plenty of asteroids and terrestrial worlds to mine for resources.

The four vessels were all frigates, meant for speed and not open engagement. The prow of the ships were split into two prongs that reached out like the jaws of a crocodile from the main body of the ship. The lead frigate was slightly larger than the other three, and was the one that was leading the show.

"Captain, scanners detect a structure on one of the large asteroids in the belt."

The Captain nodded his head in approval. "Any drive signatures detected?"

"No, Captain. We aren't detecting anything at the moment."

"Good. Continue deceleration and adjust heading to the structure. I want active scans of the entire system every five minutes. Nothing is sneaking up on us."

They had just reduced their speeds to below the speed of light when they had entered the system and there was still a lot of deceleration left if they didn't want to fly right by the intended asteroid. At their current speeds and rate of deceleration, given the distance to the structure they were aiming for, they'd reach it in 106 minutes.

"I want weapons on standby," the Captain ordered. "And give the infiltration team our ETA. I want them ready and in the shuttles with ten minutes to go."

One hundred and five minutes later and a trio of shuttles launched from each of the four frigates. The shuttles split up between the station's access points, two docking connections and a shuttle bay. From his view of the bridge, the Captain watched as the access points were breached, and the infiltration team swarmed into the station.

The Captain waited impatiently, not a fan of the sitting and waiting game as the infiltration teams did what they needed to do. After another scan showed there were no ships in the system, he got his first update.

"So far we've met no resistance. The station appears to be empty."

Did the humans already catch on to what was going on and act to prevent it from happening again and again? If they did, he would have to give them credit, they acted a lot faster in emptying out these far flung locations than any of the Council races. The turians would fortify such places, believing an increase in firepower would be suitable to ward off future threats. The salarians would spend too much time investigating the attacks, and would allow them to keep happening to give them more data, until they could figure out what was going on. The asari would pretend nothing was happening while they sent commando teams to get to the bottom of the situation. It appeared humans just said fuck it and left. Knowing what he knew, the Captain thought it the smarter of the decisions, even if it was the most frustrating for him.

"Keep looking," the Captain ordered. "We came all this way, we can't go back empty handed."

It was another twenty minutes before he heard back, and the news was a lot better than it had been.

"We found some sir. Not as many as the previous locations but we found twenty-five males. They put up no fight. We have them collared and are on our way back to the shuttles."

"Good," the Captain said. He turned to the bridge crew that surrounded him. "I want all ships turned around and engines hot. As soon as the last shuttle is in, we're burning for home base."

As the four ships used their thrusters to turn around, to face the way they had come from for the return trip home, a small hunk of metal, about the size of a football, floated up from a nearby asteroid. It looked like a piece of debris caught up in the gravitational field that affected all of the asteroids, except it drifted in the opposite direction of the asteroids, and moved at a quicker pace.

The hunk of metal drifted closer and closer to one of the frigates before it slid through space right toward the metal hull. The orb spun and pressed against the hull and stayed there, its magnetic force keeping it in place. The last of the shuttles rose from the station and docked with the frigates, and almost as one the engines of the starships started and they began their acceleration forward.

The four frigates continued to pick up speed and upon hitting the speed of light, the metal orb suddenly flashed. The orb sent a tight beam transmission to a set of coordinates, relaying its position, and it would continue to do so every two hours.

Reaching the edge of the system, and with the speeds they were going, the four ships had stopped scanning the system so they didn't notice when, on the other side of the star, hiding behind the second planet, a Venusian hothouse of a planet, the engines of thirty-six ships powered up.

The Systems Alliance 9th Attack Task Force, part of the 3rd Fleet, set their course to travel around the star, toward the station that had just been raided. The flagship of the 9th Attack Task Force was the SSV Mandela, a carrier under the control of Rear Admiral Osideinde. The rest of the task force consisted of one heavy cruiser, six cruisers, thirteen destroyers, and fifteen frigates.

As a group, their speed carried them past the station, and as they continued to accelerate, they followed behind the four frigates that had just left the system, unaware that they were being hunted.

The four frigates arrived in the Maroon Sea cluster two and a half weeks later. From the Horse Head Nebula they had traveled to the Argos Rho cluster with standard FTL travel. Once in Argos Rho, they altered their course to aim for the Dogan System, as they called it, and the mass relay that orbited the edge of it. They kept their speed as they approached the relay, going ten times the speed of light, and used it to jump to the neighboring Maroon Sea. From there they traveled to one of a dozen star systems, the one they called Irask.

Irask had five planets and two asteroid belts. The fourth planet in the system was a gas giant with over 120 moons. It was to there they headed to, not to the planet or even one of the larger moons, but one of the more average sized moons. To many this moon they called Akhato would be worthless, it lacked the size and dense core to offer much gravity, had no semblance of an atmosphere, and had no resources available for mining, but it wasn't worthless to the frigates.

The Captain who led the frigates had them slowing down before they even entered the system. Their destination was one well known to them, as they navigated through the outer asteroid belt to drift over Akhato. Eight ships already drifted above the moon, two cruisers and six frigates, all of similar design.

As shuttles with the infiltrator teams and their captors flew from the frigates and down to the surface of Akhato, the lead ship of the four was hailed.

"How many of them did you get this time?"

A scowl came over the Captain's face as he answered the man who was technically his commander. "Not nearly the same as previous raids; only twenty-five."

"That's it? That's all you got?"

"There should have been more. The place was built for more. The humans must have recalled their people. I don't know if we'll find large numbers of them at any of their other places."

"Waste of a trip. We'll wait some months before trying again, in a different cluster of theirs. There are plenty of other systems and plenty of other races we can raid in the meantime."

Akhato didn't have much on its gray surface. There was a large shuttle bay and a separate one story building near a landing field. Beneath its surface were large chambers and crisscrossing tunnels that connected them all. It was here that those caught in this section of the galaxy were checked over, processed, and entered into the data system. When all that was done, they were loaded up on other ships and sent to the Hegemony to be sold as slaves.

The base on Akhato had been built over a hundred years ago. At the time the raids were done on some of the independent planets in the Terminus System and on outlying salarian colonies. Each of the races had their different values when it came to being slaves. Asari, because of their long life spans and biotic abilities, often fetched the highest price. The hanar, who couldn't be used as a labor source and didn't have the intelligence of salarians and volus to make up for it, were fairly worthless as slaves and if any were in the place being raided, or captured, they were often killed. Same thing with krogan, who could fetch the highest price if they were a more docile species, but they were more trouble than they were worth; even with a collar they rarely followed commands and over time either the krogan slave would have to be killed or it would kill its master.

Two days later, the Captain demanded to know what was going on. It was normal for the processing of slaves to take a while, but going on two days at Akhato with only twenty-five slaves seemed absurd.

"The fucking humans are resisting," was the response he got.

"Resisting? The others put up some fight, and there were hundreds of them."

"Yes, but these humans can withstand the collars better. You shock them and twenty minutes later, they're back at it."

The Captain could only grumble at the news. The collar slaves wore sent a nasty jolt of electricity directly into the neck of the slave. The electricity would make the arms seize up and would sometimes cause the legs to buckle. It would also interfere with the firing of neurons in the brain, oftentimes causing the brain to skip. If these humans could withstand being shocked better than the others, it might cause some problems but it also meant these humans were made of stronger stuff, which in turn meant a higher price.

"Captain!"

"What?" he snapped at the man who called his attention, already in a bad mood.

"We've been scanning the system every so often, per your orders and we just detected a tight beam transmission coming from one of the other ships, directed toward human space."

"What?" he said again, this time with less anger and more confusion.

"We detected a tight beam -"

"Contact!" another of his bridge officers shouted, interrupting. "We have contact!"

Rear Admiral Osideinde stood with his arms behind his back as the attack task force entered the system in formation. There was a flurry of activity from the deck officers. Navigation was continuing the decreasing of their speed, Communications was making sure things were running smoothly with the rest of the task force, Weapons was bringing the systems online, and Operations was scanning as much as the systems as possible to get them an idea of what they were looking at.

"We detect twelve drive signatures in system," the Operations officer stated. "Near what looks like a gas giant."

"Nelson, are you able to identify the drive signatures?" Osideinde asked.

The AI, who took his name and image after Nelson Mandela, floated above the holotank and tilted his head. "I believe so Rear Admiral, based on the information provided to us by the quarians, they are a 93.6% match with batarian warships. Based on the sizes, I'd guess two cruisers and ten frigates."

The ships in 9th Attack Task Force had their systems upgraded with the newest technologies in kinetic barriers and engine drives, but the increases were only a percentage above what they previously were. Any big improvements would mean completely stripping what was already in the ships and installing new systems, a process that would take months to complete. Even if they didn't have the fresh of the press, top of the line barriers and engines, Osideinde was confident his task force could easily handle the 12 ships.

"And our transmitter?" he asked the AI.

If they allowed it, everything the officers were doing on the deck could easily be handled by Nelson, but there were regulations against giving an AI that much power over a ship, not to mention shackles on the AIs core.

"Is on one of those ships, Rear Admiral."

That was all the confirmation Osideinde needed.

"We found our raiders. Krejčí!"

"Yes sir?" his Communications officer asked.

"Tell Task Group Delta they are to continue at speed past the planet before decelerating and coming back around, in case any of the raiders try to flee. Task Force Alpha and Task Force Beta are to decelerate to attack speeds. Nelson will help with designating targets. Miller!"

"Sir!" the Operations officer responded.

"Work with Nelson and find me their base."

"Yes sir!"

"Richter!"

"Sir?" The Navigations officer snapped to attention.

"Continue deceleration. I want us behind Task Forces Alpha and Beta."

"You got it sir," Richter said.

"Nelson."

"Yes, Rear Admiral?" The AI, who was already split between a few different things, asked.

"Tell Major Alcaraz to ready his marines."

"Yes, Rear Admiral."

They closed the distance between themselves and the group of batarian vessels. The First Contact War had ended over a year ago, and here they were about to engage in a fight with a second alien species.

"There are structures on the moon the batarian ships cluster above," Miller said. "Not a lot, but Nelson believes the majority of the structures are below the surface."

"Miller -"

"Already plotting a course sir."

"Good. Nelson, do your best to monitor any traffic between that moon and the ships. Any shuttles go between the two I want to be alerted."

Down in the shuttle bay three hundred of the 1800 marine armored regiment loaded up, sixty of them in five UT-44 Kodiak drop shuttles and the remaining two hundred and forty split between ten UL-26 Bengal troop transport. The Kodiaks were faster, meant to get troops in quickly to secure a landing zone for the slower moving Bengals that could carry twice the amount of troops.

Another three hundred marines stood in the standby area outside the shuttle bay. If things hit the fan while assaulting the base, they would be sent in as backup.

First Lieutenant Sturgess sat in one of the Bengals and looked over his rifle as they waited for the green light. If this had been a full regiment operation, he would be leading the men on the Kodiaks, while the other officers, including the Major, were on the Bengals. With only a sixth of their men going, he was the officer in charge, which meant Gunnery Chief Parada was leading the Kodiaks.

"Marines!" Major Alcaraz's voice boomed in everyone's ear. "The Task Force has engaged the enemy ships and we are moving into position over the base. You launch in three!"

"You heard him marines," Sturgess grunted into his comm. "Triple check your seals."

Sturgess looked over his own suit, making sure there were no holes or cracks or anything like that. He sealed his helmet and made sure those seals were tight too before unsealing it. Last thing he wanted was to waste his suit's oxygen before they stepped foot on the moon. They had been informed of the lack of oxygen and the low gravity they would be dealing with. Extra plates had been added to everyone's armor for additional weight.

The doors to the shuttle bay opened and the Kodiaks and Bengals loaded with men were detached from their docking spaces, the metal clamps holding them in place suddenly becoming demagnetized.

"Lights are green."

"Launch!"

The Kodiaks surged forward first, followed by the Bengals. As the shuttles and transports accelerated toward the moon, the space battle raged off the SSV Mandela's port side. The shields flickered on one of the batarian cruisers before fading from sight as another round from the heavy cruiser, the SSV Melbourne, struck its starboard side.

Three of the batarian frigates and one of the Alliance frigates were already listing dead in space, venting atmosphere. The fighting in space would be over with long before the fighting in the base was. Space was open and though the gas giant had plenty of moons, it was difficult to hide in a space battle. Even if the batarian ships had better barriers and faster ships, in the battle itself the Alliance outnumbered the batarians two to one, and if the ships that had been sent to stop any enemy ships from fleeing joined the battle, it would be three to one odds.

The Kodiaks split, three of the shuttles, including the one with Gunnery Chief Parada, going to the shuttle bay and two to the other building. As the two landed, their doors slid open and the marines rushed forward, guns raised. There was no cover between where they landed and the structure they rushed to, and their gaits were awkward in the lower gravity, but they were fortunate enough to meet no resistance.

The two dozen Marines pressed themselves against the side of the building as Service Chief Xiaotao tried to access the door. He connected Victor, the name given to the advanced VI given to each marine squad, to the door's access panel but even with the upgrades on alien languages, Victor couldn't gain access.

"Looks like we're doing this the hard way. Corporal Sosa, crack this can!"

The Marine called Sosa stepped forward and holstered his gun. Sosa knocked on the door and frowned beneath his helmet. It was a sliding door made up of some type of heavy metal. He reached into one of the many patches that covered his armor and withdrew a chunk of thermite putty. He rolled the putty between his hands until it stretched out. After he had almost two feet of putty in his hands, he placed it on the door, starting to form a circle. He took out even more putty and did the same.

"What's taking so long?"

"Sosa's playing with himself."

Sosa ignored the muttering as he attached the last piece of putty to the door, forming a crude circle, almost two and a half feet in diameter.

"Making it hot!" Sosa cried, stepping away from the door.

Sparks flew as the putty burned, hot and bright. Even stepping away from it, Sosa could feel the heat and he shied further away from it. It took a minute for the thermite to completely burn out. Looking back, Sosa saw that the thermite had burned through the majority of the metal but there were still connecting pieces, warped though they were, holding it in place.

"It's not fully cracked," Sosa told the Gunnery Chief.

"For fucks sake."

Sosa stepped toward the door and pulled out a plasma torch. He turned the torch on, a small jet of plasma exploding from the end. He used it to cut through the last of the metal before shoving hard on the circle he had burned in the door. It fell backwards with a heavy thud.

Bullets ripped through the now open circle, the first few taking down Sosa's barrier before one hit him in the shoulder and another in the gut. Sosa fell backwards with a scream of pain.

"Contact!" someone yelled.

The emergency layer of Sosa's suit automatically sealed the puncture holes.

"Medic!" Xiaotao called as another marine pulled Sosa away from the door. "Rodriguez, flash 'em!"

Xiaotao and the marine named Rodriguez, who stood on the other side of the door, both pulled out flash bangs, pulled the pins and threw them through the opening. It was a second before a loud bang was heard, followed by yelps of pain.

"Go, go, go!"

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Rodriguez screamed as he squeezed himself through the hole in the door, rifle first. There were half a dozen human like figures standing in font of him, each of them holding a rifle but dazed from the flashbang. As Rodriguez moved away from the opening he just came though, he aimed at one of the figures and squeezed the trigger. The bullets quickly took down the shield, before filling his target with holes.

Another marine followed him, and then another and another. As a fifth man entered through the hole, Corporal Sosa was being carried back to the shuttles by two men, plus the medic running at their side. Xiaotao motioned for another man to follow into the strructure.

Shouts and screams were coming from just inside the doorway, but it was hard to distinguish any of them over the thunder of gunfire. By the time the sixth man went to enter, the door slid open. The door led to a corridor that sloped downward before making a 90 degree turn. Two marines were dead, with a third wounded. There were four armored figures, looking very human-like, that lay further down the corridor.

"Get me men on that corner," Xiaotao ordered, pointing through the opening. "Get the wounded back to the shuttles."

Two men picked up the wounded marine and did as he commanded.

At that time, the Bengals began to land and a hundred and twenty more marines touched down on the moon. Xiaotao walked over to them, nodding his head at First Lieutenant Sturgess as he approached him.

"The door is open, First Lieutenant."

"Good. Let's go kick some alien ass and get our men back."